Chapter VI: Book 4: , number 5 (1)

See, also, BOUVINES, BATTLE OF.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1206-1230.
Attempts of John and Henry III. to recover Anjou and Maine.

See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.
Magna Carta.

"It is to the victory of Bouvines that England owes her Great
Charter [see BOUVINES]. ... John sailed for Poitou with the
dream of a great victory which should lay Philip [of France]
and the barons alike at his feet. He returned from his defeat
to find the nobles no longer banded together in secret
conspiracies, but openly united in a definite claim of liberty
and law. The author of this great change was the new
Archbishop [Langton] whom Innocent had set on the throne of
Canterbury. ... In a private meeting of the barons at St.
Paul's, he produced the Charter of Henry I., and the
enthusiasm with which it was welcomed showed the sagacity with
which the Primate had chosen his ground for the coming
struggle. All hope, however, hung on the fortunes of the
French campaign; it was the victory at Bouvines that broke the
spell of terror, and within a few days of the king's landing
the barons again met at St. Edmundsbury. ... At Christmas they
presented themselves in arms before the king and preferred their
claim. The few months that followed showed John that he stood
alone in the land. ... At Easter the barons again gathered in
arms at Brackley and renewed their claim. 'Why do they not ask
for my kingdom?' cried John in a burst of passion; but the
whole country rose as one man at his refusal. London threw
open her gates to the army of the barons, now organized under
Robert Fitz-Walter, 'the marshal of the army of God and the
holy Church.' The example of the capital was at once followed
by Exeter and Lincoln; promises of aid came from Scotland and
Wales; the northern nobles marched hastily to join their
comrades in London. With seven horsemen in his train John
found himself face to face with a nation in arms. ... Nursing
wrath in his heart the tyrant bowed to necessity, and summoned
the barons to a conference at Runnymede. An island in the
Thames between Staines and Windsor had been chosen as the
place of conference: the king encamped on one bank, while the
barons covered the marshy flat, still known by the name of
Runnymede, on the other. Their delegates met in the island
between them. ... The Great Charter was discussed, agreed to,
and signed in a single day [June 15, A. D. 1215]. One copy of
it still remains in the British Museum, injured by age and
fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown,
shriveled parchment."

_J. R Green,
Short History of the England People,
chapter 3, sections 2-3._

"As this was the first effort towards a legal government, so
is it beyond comparison the most important event in our
history, except that, Revolution without which its benefits
would have been rapidly annihilated. The constitution of
England has indeed no single date from which its duration is
to be reckoned. The institutions of positive law, the far more
important changes which time has wrought in the order of
society, during six hundred years subsequent to the Great
Charter, have undoubtedly lessened its direct application to
our present circumstances. But it is still the key-stone of
English liberty. All that has since been obtained is little
more than as confirmation or commentary. ... The essential
clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect the personal
liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from
arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation.
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'No freeman (says the 29th chapter of Henry III.'s charter,
which, as the existing law, I quote in preference to that of
John, the variations not being very material) shall be taken
or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties,
or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise
destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon, but by
lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We
will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man,
justice or right.' It is obvious that these words, interpreted
by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the
two main rights of civil society."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 8, part 2._

"The Great Charter, although drawn up in the form of a royal
grant, was really a treaty between the king and his subjects.
... It is the collective people who really form the other high
contracting party in the great capitulation,--the three
estates of the realm, not, it is true, arranged in order
according to their profession or rank, but not the less
certainly combined in one national purpose, and securing by
one bond the interests and rights of each other, severally and
all together. ... The barons maintain and secure the right of
the whole people as against themselves as well as against
their master. Clause by clause the rights of the commons are
provided for as well as the rights of the nobles. ... The
knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his
services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the
irregular requisition even of the sheriff. ... The Great
Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it
has realised its own identity. ... The whole of the
constitutional history of England is little more than a
commentary on Magna Carta."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, section 155._

The following is the text of Magna Carta;

"John, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland,
Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his
Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries,
Foresters, Sheriffs, Governors, Officers, and to all Bailiffs,
and his faithful subjects, greeting. Know ye, that we, in the
presence of God, and for the salvation of our soul, and the
souls of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honour of
God and the advancement of Holy Church, and amendment of our
Realm, by advice of our venerable Fathers, Stephen, Archbishop
of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy
Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin; William, of London;
Peter, of Winchester; Jocelin, of Bath and Glastonbury; Hugh,
of Lincoln; Walter, of Worcester; William, of Coventry;
Benedict, of Rochester--Bishops; of Master Pandulph,
Sub-Deacon and Familiar of our Lord the Pope; Brother Aymeric,
Master of the Knights-Templars in England; and of the noble
Persons, William Marescall, Earl of Pembroke; William, Earl of
Salisbury; William, Earl of Warren; William, Earl of Arundel;
Alan de Galloway, Constable of Scotland; Warin FitzGerald,
Peter FitzHerbert, and Hubert de Burgh, Seneschal of Poitou;
Hugh de Neville, Matthew FitzHerbert, Thomas Basset, Alan
Basset, Philip of Albiney, Robert de Roppell, John Mareschal,
John FitzHugh, and others, our liegemen, have, in the first
place, granted to God, and by this our present Charter
confirmed, for us and our heirs forever;

1. That the Church of England shall be free, and have her
whole rights, and her liberties inviolable; and we will have
them so observed, that it may appear thence that the freedom
of elections, which is reckoned chief and indispensable to the
English Church, and which we granted and confirmed by our
Charter, and obtained the confirmation of the same from our
Lord the Pope Innocent III., before the discord between us and
our barons, was granted of mere free will; which Charter we
shall observe, and we do will it to be faithfully observed by
our heirs for ever.

2. We also have granted to all the freemen of our kingdom, for
us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties,
to be had and holden by them and their heirs, of us and our
heirs for ever; If any of our earls, or barons, or others, who
hold of us in chief by military service, shall die, and at the
time of his death his heir shall be of full age, and owe a
relief, he shall have his inheritance by the ancient
relief--that is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl, for a
whole earldom, by a hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a
baron, for a whole barony, by a hundred pounds; the heir or
heirs of a knight, for a whole knight's fee, by a hundred
shillings at most; and whoever oweth less shall give less,
according to the ancient custom of fees.

3. But if the heir of any such shall be under age, and shall
be in ward, when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance
without relief and without fine.

4. The keeper of the land of such an heir being under age,
shall take of the land of the heir none but reasonable issues,
reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without
destruction and waste of his men and his goods; and if we
commit the custody of any such lands to the sheriff, or any
other who is answerable to us for the issues of the land, and
he shall make destruction and waste of the lands which he hath
in custody, we will take of him amends, and the land shall be
committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who
shall answer for the issues to us, or to him to whom we shall
assign them; and if we sell or give to anyone the custody of
any such lands, and he therein make destruction or waste, he
shall lose the same custody, which shall be committed to two
lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall in like manner
answer to us as aforesaid.

5. But the keeper, so long as he shall have the custody of the
land, shall keep up the houses, parks, warrens, ponds, mills,
and other things pertaining to the land, out of the issues of
the same land; and shall deliver to the heir, when he comes of
full age, his whole land, stocked with ploughs and carriages,
according as the time of wainage shall require, and the issues
of the land can reasonably bear.

6. Heirs shall be married without disparagement, and so that
before matrimony shall be contracted, those who are near in
blood to the heir shall have notice.

7. A widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith
and without difficulty have her marriage and inheritance; nor
shall she give anything for her dower, or her marriage, of her
inheritance, which her husband and she held at the day of his
death; and she may remain in the mansion house of her husband
forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall
be assigned.

8. No widow shall be distrained to marry herself, so long as
she has a mind to live without a husband; but yet she shall
give security that she will not marry without our assent, if
she hold of us; or without the consent of the lord of whom she
holds, if she hold of another.

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9. Neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any land or rent
for any debt so long as the chattels of the debtor are
sufficient to pay the debt; nor shall the sureties of the
debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor has
sufficient to pay the debt; and if the principal debtor shall
fail in the payment of the debt, not having wherewithal to pay
it, then the sureties shall answer the debt; and if they will
they shall have the lands and rents of the debtor, until they
shall be satisfied for the debt which they paid for him,
unless the principal debtor can show himself acquitted thereof
against the said sureties.

10. If anyone have borrowed anything of the Jews, more or
less, and die before the debt be satisfied, there shall be no
interest paid for that debt, so long as the heir is under age,
of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt falls into our
hands, we will only take the chattel mentioned in the deed.

11. And if anyone shall die indebted to the Jews, his wife
shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if the
deceased left children under age, they shall have necessaries
provided for them, according to the tenement of the deceased;
and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, saving,
however, the service due to the lords, and in like manner
shall it be done touching debts due to others than the Jews.

12. No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, unless
by the general council of our kingdom; except for ransoming
our person, making our eldest son a knight, and once for
marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall be
paid no more than a reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be
concerning the aids of the City of London.

13. And the City of London shall have all its ancient
liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water:
furthermore, we will and grant that all other cities and
boroughs, and towns and ports, shall have all their liberties
and free customs.

14. And for holding the general council of the kingdom
concerning the assessment of aids, except in the three cases
aforesaid, and for the assessing of scutages, we shall cause
to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and
greater barons of the realm, singly by our letters. And
furthermore, we shall cause to be summoned generally, by our
sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief, for
a certain day, that is to say, forty days before their meeting
at least, and to a certain place; and in all letters of such
summons we will declare the cause of such summons. And summons
being thus made, the business shall proceed on the day
appointed, according to the advice of such as shall be
present, although all that were summoned come not.

15. We will not for the future grant to anyone that he may
take aid of his own free tenants, unless to ransom his body,
and to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his
eldest daughter; and for this there shall be only paid a
reasonable aid.

16. No man shall be distrained to perform more service for a
knight's fee, or other free tenement, than is due from thence.

17. Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be
holden in some place certain.

18. Trials upon the Writs of Novel Disseisin, and of Mort
d'ancestor, and of Darrein Presentment, shall not be taken but
in their proper counties, and after this manner: We, or if we
should be out of the realm, our chief justiciary, will send
two justiciaries through every county four times a year, who,
with four knights of each county, chosen by the county, shall
hold the said assizes in the county, on the day, and at the
place appointed.

19. And if any matters cannot be determined on the day
appointed for holding the assizes in each county, so many of
the knights and freeholders as have been at the assizes
aforesaid shall stay to decide them as is necessary, according
as there is more or less business.

20. A freeman shall not be amerced for a small offence, but
only according to the degree of the offence; and for a great
crime according to the heinousness of it, saving to him his
contenement; and after the same manner a merchant, saving to
him his merchandise. And a villein shall be amerced after the
same manner, saving to him his wainage, if he falls under our
mercy; and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall be
assessed but by the oath of honest men in the neighbourhood.

21. Earls and barons shall not be amerced but by their peers,
and after the degree of the offence.

22. No ecclesiastical person shall be amerced for his lay
tenement, but according to the proportion of the others
aforesaid, and not according to the value of his
ecclesiastical benefice.

23. Neither a town nor any tenant shall be distrained to make
bridges or embankments, unless that anciently and of right
they are bound to do it.

24. No sheriff, constable, coroner, or other our bailiffs,
shall hold "Pleas of the Crown."

25. All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and trethings, shall
stand at the old rents, without any increase, except in our
demesne manors.

26. If anyone holding of us a lay fee die, and the sheriff, or
our bailiffs, show our letters patent of summons for debt
which the dead man did owe to us, it shall be lawful for the
sheriff or our bailiff to attach and register the chattels of
the dead, found upon his lay fee, to the amount of the debt,
by the view of lawful men, so as nothing be removed until our
whole clear debt be paid; and the rest shall be left to the
executors to fulfil the testament of the dead; and if there be
nothing due from him to us, all the chattels shall go to the
use of the dead, saving to his wife and children their
reasonable shares.

27. If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be
distributed by the hands of his nearest relations and friends,
by view of the Church, saving to everyone his debts which the
deceased owed to him.

28. No constable or bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
chattels of any man unless he presently give him money for it,
or hath respite of payment by the good-will of the seller.

29. No constable shall distrain any knight to give money for
castle-guard, if he himself will do it in his person, or by
another able man, in case he cannot do it through any
reasonable cause. And if we have carried or sent him into the
army, he shall be free from such guard for the time he shall
be in the army by our command.

30. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take
horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, without the
assent of the said freeman.

31. Neither shall we nor our bailiffs take any man's timber
for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of the
owner of the timber.

32. We will retain the lands of those convicted of felony only
one year and a day, and then they shall be delivered to the
lord of the fee.

33. All kydells (wears) for the time to come shall be put down
in the rivers of Thames and Medway, and throughout all
England, except upon the seacoast.

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34. The writ which is called prœcipe, for the future, shall
not be made out to anyone, of any tenement, whereby a freeman
may lose his court.

35. There shall be one measure of wine and one of ale through
our whole realm; and one measure of corn, that is to say, the
London quarter; and one breadth of dyed cloth, and russets,
and haberjeets, that is to say, two ells within the lists; and
it shall be of weights as it is of measures.

36. Nothing from henceforth shall be given or taken for a writ
of inquisition of life or limb, but it shall be granted
freely, and not denied.

37. If any do hold of us by fee-farm, or by socage, or by
burgage, and he hold also lands of any other by knight's
service, we will not have the custody of the heir or land,
which is holden of another man's fee by reason of that
fee-farm, socage, or burgage; neither will we have the custody
of the fee-farm, or socage, or burgage, unless knight's
service was due to us out of the same fee-farm. We will not
have the custody of an heir, nor of any land which he holds of
another by knight's service, by reason of any petty serjeanty
by which he holds of us, by the service of paying a knife, an
arrow, or the like.

38. No bailiff from henceforth shall put any man to his law
upon his own bare saying, without credible witnesses to prove
it.

39. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised, or
outlawed, or banished, or any ways destroyed, nor will we pass
upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

40. We will sell to no man, we will not deny to any man,
either justice or right.

41. All merchants shall have safe and secure conduct, to go
out of, and to come into England, and to stay there and to
pass as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by
the ancient and allowed customs, without any unjust tolls;
except in time of war, or when they are of any nation at war
with us. And if there be found any such in our land, in the
beginning of the war, they shall be attached, without damage
to their bodies or goods, until it be known unto us, or our
chief justiciary, how our merchants be treated in the nation
at war with us; and if ours be safe there, the others shall be
safe in our dominions.

42. It shall be lawful, for the time to come, for anyone to go
out of our kingdom, and return safely and securely by land or
by water, saving his allegiance to us; unless in time of war,
by some short space, for the common benefit of the realm,
except prisoners and outlaws, according to the law of the
land, and people in war with us, and merchants who shall be
treated as is above mentioned.

43. If any man hold of any escheat, as of the honour of
Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other
escheats which be in our hands, and are baronies, and die, his
heir shall give no other relief, and perform no other service
to us than he would to the baron, if it were in the baron's
hand; and we will hold it after the same manner as the baron
held it.

44. Those men who dwell without the forest from henceforth
shall not come before our justiciaries of the forest, upon
common summons, but such as are impleaded, or are sureties for
any that are attached for something concerning the forest.

45. We will not make any justices, constables, sheriffs, or
bailiffs, but of such as know the law of the realm and mean
duly to observe it.

46. All barons who have founded abbeys, which they hold by
charter from the kings of England, or by ancient tenure, shall
have the keeping of them, when vacant, as they ought to have.

47. All forests that have been made forests in our time shall
forthwith be disforested; and the same shall be done with the
water-banks that have been fenced in by us in our time.

48. All evil customs concerning forests, warrens, foresters,
and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, water-banks and
their keepers, shall forthwith be inquired into in each
county, by twelve sworn knights of the same county, chosen by
creditable persons of the same county; and within forty days
after the said inquest be utterly abolished, so as never to be
restored: so as we are first acquainted therewith, or our
justiciary, if we should not be in England.

49. We will immediately give up all hostages and charters
delivered unto us by our English subjects, as securities for
their keeping the peace, and yielding us faithful service.

50. We will entirely remove from their bailiwicks the
relations of Gerard de Atheyes, so that for the future they
shall have no bailiwick in England; we will also remove
Engelard de Cygony, Andrew, Peter, and Gyon, from the
Chancery; Gyon de Cygony, Geoffrey de Martyn, and his
brothers; Philip Mark, and his brothers, and his nephew,
Geoffrey, and their whole retinue.

51. As soon as peace is restored, we will send out of the
kingdom all foreign knights, cross-bowmen, and stipendiaries,
who are come with horses and arms to the molestation of our
people.

52. If anyone has been dispossessed or deprived by us, without
the lawful judgment of his peers, of his lands, castles,
liberties, or right, we will forthwith restore them to him;
and if any dispute arise upon this head, let the matter be
decided by the five-and-twenty barons hereafter mentioned, for
the preservation of the peace. And for all those things of
which any person has, without the lawful judgment of his
peers, been dispossessed or deprived, either by our father
King Henry, or our brother King Richard, and which we have in
our hands, or are possessed by others, and we are bound to
warrant and make good, we shall have a respite till the term
usually allowed the crusaders; excepting those things about
which there is a plea depending, or whereof an inquest hath
been made, by our order before we undertook the crusade; but
as soon as we return from our expedition, or if perchance we
tarry at home and do not make our expedition, we will
immediately cause full justice to be administered therein.

53. The same respite we shall have, and in the same manner,
about administering justice, disafforesting or letting
continue the forests, which Henry our father, and our brother
Richard, have afforested; and the same concerning the wardship
of the lands which are in another's fee, but the wardship of
which we have hitherto had, by reason of a fee held of us by
knight's service; and for the abbeys founded in any other fee
than our own, in which the lord of the fee says he has a
right; and when we return from our expedition, or if we tarry
at home, and do not make our expedition, we will immediately
do full justice to all the complainants in this behalf.

54. No man shall be taken or imprisoned upon the appeal of a
woman, for the death of any other than her husband.

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55. All unjust and illegal fines made by us, and all
amerciaments imposed unjustly and contrary to the law of the
land, shall be entirely given up, or else be left to the
decision of the five-and-twenty barons hereafter mentioned for
the preservation of the peace, or of the major part of them,
together with the aforesaid Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
if he can be present, and others whom he shall think fit to
invite; and if he cannot be present, the business shall
notwithstanding go on without him; but so that if one or more
of the aforesaid five-and-twenty barons be plaintiffs in the
same cause, they shall be set aside as to what concerns this
particular affair, and others be chosen in their room, out of
the said five-and-twenty, and sworn by the rest to decide the
matter.

56. If we have disseised or dispossessed the Welsh of any
lands, liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment
of their peers, either in England or in Wales, they shall be
immediately restored to them; and if any dispute arise upon
this head, the matter shall be determined in the Marches by
the judgment of their peers; for tenements in England
according to the law of England, for tenements in Wales
according to the law of Wales, for tenements of the Marches
according to the law of the Marches: the same shall the Welsh
do to us and our subjects.

57. As for all those things of which a Welshman hath, without
the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or deprived
of by King Henry our father, or our brother King Richard, and
which we either have in our hands or others are possessed of,
and we are obliged to warrant it, we shall have a respite till
the time generally allowed the crusaders; excepting those
things about which a suit is depending, or whereof an inquest
has been made by our order, before we undertook the crusade:
but when we return, or if we stay at home without performing
our expedition, we will immediately do them full justice,
according to the laws of the Welsh and of the parts before
mentioned.

58. We will without delay dismiss the son of Llewellin, and
all the Welsh hostages, and release them from the engagements
they have entered into with us for the preservation of the
peace.

59. We will treat with Alexander, King of Scots, concerning
the restoring his sisters and hostages, and his right and
liberties, in the same form and manner as we shall do to the
rest of our barons of England; unless by the charters which we
have from his father, William, late King of Scots, it ought to
be otherwise; and this shall be left to the determination of
his peers in our court.

60. All the aforesaid customs and liberties, which we have
granted to be holden in our kingdom, as much as it belongs to
us, all people of our kingdom, as well clergy as laity, shall
observe, as far as they are concerned, towards their
dependents.

61. And whereas, for the honour of God and the amendment of
our kingdom, and for the better quieting the discord that has
arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these
things aforesaid; willing to render them firm and lasting, we
do give and grant our subjects the underwritten security,
namely that the barons may choose five-and-twenty barons of
the kingdom, whom they think convenient; who shall take care,
with all their might, to hold and observe, and cause to be
observed, the peace and liberties we have granted them, and by
this our present Charter confirmed in this manner; that is to
say, that if we, our justiciary, our bailiffs, or any of our
officers, shall in any circumstance have failed in the
performance of them towards any person, or shall have broken
through any of these articles of peace and security, and the
offence be notified to four barons chosen out of the
five-and-twenty before mentioned, the said four barons shall
repair to us, or our justiciary, if we are out of the realm,
and, laying open the grievance, shall petition to have it
redressed without delay: and if it be not redressed by us, or
if we should chance to be out of the realm, if it should not
be redressed by our justiciary within forty days, reckoning
from the time it has been notified to us, or to our justiciary
(if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid
shall lay the cause before the rest of the five-and-twenty
barons; and the said five-and-twenty barons, together with the
community of the whole kingdom, shall distrain and distress us
in all the ways in which they shall be able, by seizing our
castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can,
till the grievance is redressed, according to their pleasure;
saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our Queen
and children; and when it is redressed, they shall behave to
us as before. And any person whatsoever in the kingdom may
swear that he will obey the orders of the five-and-twenty
barons aforesaid in the execution of the premises, and will
distress us, jointly with them, to the utmost of his power;
and we give public and free liberty to anyone that shall
please to swear to this, and never will hinder any person from
taking the same oath.

62. As for all those of our subjects who will not, of their
own accord, swear to join the five-and-twenty barons in
distraining and distressing us, we will issue orders to make
them take the same oath as aforesaid. And if anyone of the
five-and-twenty barons dies, or goes out of the kingdom, or is
hindered any other way from carrying the things aforesaid into
execution, the rest of the said five-and-twenty barons may
choose another in his room, at their discretion, who shall be
sworn in like manner as the rest. In all things that are
committed to the execution of these five-and-twenty barons,
if, when they are all assembled together, they should happen
to disagree about any matter, and some of them, when summoned,
will not or cannot come, whatever is agreed upon, or enjoined,
by the major part of those that are present shall be reputed
as firm and valid as if all the five-and-twenty had given
their consent; and the aforesaid five-and-twenty shall swear
that all the premises they shall faithfully observe, and cause
with all their power to be observed. And we will procure
nothing from anyone, by ourselves nor by another, whereby any
of these concessions and liberties may be revoked or lessened;
and if any such thing shall have been obtained, let it be null
and void; neither will we ever make use of it either by
ourselves or any other. And all the ill-will, indignations,
and rancours that have arisen between us and our subjects, of
the clergy and laity, from the first breaking out of the
dissensions between us, we do fully remit and forgive:
moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said dissensions,
from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the
restoration of peace and tranquillity, we hereby entirely
remit to all, both clergy and laity, and as far as in us lies
do fully forgive. We have, moreover, caused to be made for
them the letters patent testimonial of Stephen, Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Lord Archbishop of Dublin,
and the bishops aforesaid, as also of Master Pandulph, for the
security and concessions aforesaid.

{807}

63. Wherefore we will and firmly enjoin, that the Church of
England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have and hold
all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, truly
and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly to
themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things
and places, for ever, as is aforesaid. It is also sworn, as
well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all the
things aforesaid shall be observed in good faith, and without
evil subtilty. Given under our hand, in the presence of the
witnesses above named, and many others, in the meadow called
Runingmede, between Windsor and Staines, the 15th day of June,
in the 17th year of our reign."

_W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 5._

_Old South Leaflets,
General Series,
number 5._

Also IN:
_E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 1, number 7._

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 3._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
Character and reign of Henry III.
The Barons' War.
Simon de Montfort and the evolution of the English Parliament.

King John died October 17,1216. "His legitimate successor was
a child of nine years of age. For the first time since the
Conquest the personal government was in the hands of a minor.
In that stormy time the great Earl of Pembroke undertook the
government, as Protector. ... At the Council of Bristol, with
general approbation and even with that of the papal legate,
Magna Charta was confirmed, though with the omission of
certain articles. ... After some degree of tranquillity had
been restored, a second confirmation of the Great Charter took
place in the autumn of 1217, with the omission of the clauses
referring to the estates, but with the grant of a new charta
de foresta, introducing a vigorous administration of the
forest laws. In 9 Henry III. Magna Charta was again confirmed,
and this is the form in which it afterwards took its place
among the statutes of the realm. Two years later, Henry III.
personally assumes the reins of government at the Parliament
of Oxford (1227), and begins his rule without confirming the
two charters. At first the tutorial government still
continues, which had meanwhile, even after the death of the
great Earl of Pembroke (1219), remained in a fairly orderly
condition. The first epoch of sixteen years of this reign must
therefore be regarded purely as a government by the nobility
under the name of Henry III. The regency had succeeded in
removing the dominant influence of the Roman Curia by the
recall of the papal legate, Pandulf, to Rome (1221), and in
getting rid of the dangerous foreign mercenary soldiery
(1224). ... With the disgraceful dismissal of the chief
justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, there begins a second epoch of a
personal rule of Henry III. (1232-1252), which for twenty
continuous years, presents the picture of a confused and
undecided struggle between the king and his foreign favourites
and personal adherents on the one side, and the great barons,
and with them soon the prelates, on the other. ... In 21 Henry
III. the King finds himself, in consequence of pressing money
embarrassments, again compelled to make a solemn confirmation
of the charter, in which once more the clauses relating to the
estates are omitted. Shortly afterwards, as had happened just
one hundred years previously in France, the name
'parliamentum' occurs for the first time (Chron. Dunst., 1244;
Matth. Paris, 1246), and curiously enough, Henry III. himself,
in a writ addressed to the Sheriff of Northampton, designates
with this term the assembly which originated the Magna Charta.
... The name 'parliament,' now occurs more frequently, but
does not supplant the more definite terms concilium,
colloquium, etc. In the meanwhile the relations with the
Continent became complicated, in consequence of the family
connections of the mother and wife of the King, and the greed
of the papal envoys. ... From the year 1244 onwards, neither a
chief justice nor a chancellor, nor even a treasurer, is
appointed, but the administration of the country is conducted
at the Court by the clerks of the offices."

_R. Gneist,
History of the English Constitution,
volume 1, pages 313-321._

"Nothing is so hard to realise as chaos; and nothing nearer to
chaos can be conceived than the government of Henry III. Henry
was, like all the Plantagenets, clever; like very few of them,
he was devout; and if the power of conceiving a great policy
would constitute a great King, he would certainly have been
one. ... He aimed at making the Crown virtually independent of
the barons. ... His connexion with Louis IX., whose
brother-in-law he became, was certainly a misfortune to him.
In France the royal power had during the last fifty years been
steadily on the advance; in England it had as steadily
receded; and Henry was ever hearing from the other side of the
Channel maxims of government and ideas of royal authority
which were utterly inapplicable to the actual state of his own
kingdom. This, like a premature Stuart, Henry was incapable of
perceiving; a King he was, and a King he would be, in his own
sense of the word. It is evident that with such a task before
him, he needed for the most shadowy chance of success, an iron
strength of will, singular self-control, great forethought and
care in collecting and husbanding his resources, a rare talent
for administration, the sagacity to choose and the
self-reliance to trust his counsellors. And not one of these
various qualities did Henry possess. ... Henry had imbibed
from the events and the tutors of his early childhood two
maxims of state, and two alone: to trust Rome, and to distrust
the barons of England. ... He filled the places of trust and
power about himself with aliens, to whom the maintenance of
Papal influence was like an instinct of self-preservation.
Thus were definitely formed the two great parties out of whose
antagonism the War of the Barons arose, under whose influence
the relations between the crown and people of England were
remodelled, and out of whose enduring conflict rose,
indirectly, the political principles which contributed so
largely to bring about the Reformation of the English Church.
The few years which followed the fall of Hubert de Burgh were
the heyday of Papal triumph. And no triumph could have been
worse used. ... Thus was the whole country lying a prey to the
ecclesiastical aliens maintained by the Pope, and to the lay
aliens maintained by the King, ... when Simon de Montfort
became ... inseparably intermixed with the course of our
history. ... In the year 1258 opened the first act of the
great drama which has made the name of Simon de Montfort
immortal. ... The Barons of England, at Leicester's
suggestion, had leagued for the defence of their rights. They
appeared armed at the Great Council. ...
{808}
They required as the condition of their assistance that the
general reformation of the realm should be entrusted to a
Commission of twenty-four members, half to be chosen by the
crown, and half by themselves. For the election of this body,
primarily, and for a more explicit statement of grievances,
the Great Council was to meet again at Oxford on the 11th of
June, 1258. When the Barons came, they appeared at the head of
their retainers. The invasion of the Welsh was the plea; but
the real danger was nearer home. They seized on the Cinque
Ports; the unrenewed truce with France was the excuse; they
remembered too vividly King John and his foreign mercenaries.
They then presented their petition. This was directed to the
redress of various abuses. ... To each and every clause the
King gave his inevitable assent. One more remarkable
encroachment was made upon the royal prerogative; the election
in Parliament of a chief justiciar. ... The chief justiciar
was the first officer of the Crown. He was not a mere chief
justice, after the fashion of the present day, but the
representative of the Crown in its high character of the
fountain of justice. ... But the point upon which the barons
laid the greatest stress, from the beginning to the end of
their struggle, was the question of the employment of aliens.
That the strongest castles and the fairest lands of England
should be in the hands of foreigners, was an insult to the
national spirit which no free people could fail to resent. ...
England for the English, the great war cry of the barons, went
home to the heart of the humblest. ... The great question of
the constitution of Parliament was not heard at Oxford; it
emerged into importance when the struggle grew fiercer, and
the barons found it necessary to gather allies round them. ...
One other measure completed the programme of the barons;
namely, the appointment, already referred to, of a committee
of twenty-four. ... It amounted to placing the crown under the
control of a temporary Council of Regency [see OXFORD,
PROVISIONS OF]. ... Part of the barons' work was simple
enough. The justiciar was named, and the committee of
twenty-four. To expel the foreigners was less easy. Simon de
Montfort, himself an alien by birth, resigned the two castles
which he held, and called upon the rest to follow. They simply
refused. ... But the barons were in arms, and prepared to use
them. The aliens, with their few English supporters, fled to
Winchester, where the castle was in the hands of the foreign
bishop Aymer. They were besieged, brought to terms, and
exiled. The barons were now masters of the situation. ...
Among the prerogatives of the crown which passed to the Oxford
Commission not the least valuable, for the hold which it gave
on the general government of the country, was the right to
nominate the sheriffs. In 1261 the King, who had procured a
Papal bull to abrogate the Provisions of Oxford, and an army
of mercenaries to give the bull effect, proceeded to expel the
sheriffs who had been placed in office by the barons. The
reply of the barons was most memorable; it was a direct appeal
to the order below their own. They summoned three knights
elected from each county in England to meet them at St. Albans
to discuss the state of the realm. It was clear that the day
of the House of Commons could not be far distant, when at such
a crisis an appeal to the knights of the shire could be made,
and evidently made with success. For a moment, in this great
move, the whole strength of the barons was united; but
differences soon returned, and against divided counsels the
crown steadily prevailed. In June, 1262, we find peace
restored. The more moderate of the barons had acquiesced in
the terms offered by Henry; Montfort, who refused them, was
abroad in voluntary exile. ... Suddenly, in July, the Earl of
Gloucester died, and the sole leadership of the barons passed
into the hands of Montfort. With this critical event opens the
last act in the career of the great Earl. In October he returns
privately to England. The whole winter is passed in the
patient reorganising of the party, and the preparation for a
decisive struggle. Montfort, fervent, eloquent, and devoted,
swayed with despotic influence the hearts of the younger
nobles (and few in those days lived to be grey), and taught
them to feel that the Provisions of Oxford were to them what
the Great Charter had been to their fathers. They were drawn
together with an unanimity unknown before. ... They demanded
the restoration of the Great Provisions. The King refused, and
in May, 1263, the barons appealed to arms. ... Henry, with a
reluctant hand, subscribed once more to the Provisions of
Oxford, with a saving clause, however, that they should be
revised in the coming Parliament. On the 9th of September,
accordingly, Parliament was assembled. ... The King and the
barons agreed to submit their differences to the arbitration
of Louis of France. ... Louis IX. had done more than any one
king of France to enlarge the royal prerogative; and Louis was
the brother-in-law of Henry. His award, given at Amiens on the
23d of January, 1264. was, as we should have expected,
absolutely in favour of the King. The whole Provisions of
Oxford were, in his view, an invasion of the royal power. ...
The barons were astounded. ... They at once said that the
question of the employment of aliens was never meant to be
included. ... The appeal was made once again to the sword.
Success for a moment inclined to the royal side, but it was
only for a moment; and on the memorable field of Lewes the
genius of Leicester prevailed. ... With the two kings of
England and of the Romans prisoners in his hands, Montfort
dictated the terms of the so-called Mise of Lewes. ... Subject
to the approval of Parliament, all differences were to be
submitted once more to French arbitration. ... On the 23d of
June the Parliament met. It was no longer a Great Council,
after the fashion of previous assemblies; it included four
knights, elected by each English county. This Parliament gave
such sanction as it was able to the exceptional authority of
Montfort, and ordered that until the proposed arbitration
could be carried out, the King's council should consist of
nine persons, to be named by the Bishop of Chichester, and the
Earls of Gloucester and Leicester. The effect was to give
Simon for the time despotic power. ... It was at length agreed
that all questions whatever, the employment of aliens alone
excepted, should be referred to the Bishop of London, the
justiciar Hugh le Despenser, Charles of Anjou, and the Abbot
of Bec. If on any point they could not agree, the Archbishop
of Rouen was to act as referee. ... It was ... not simply the
expedient of a revolutionary chief in difficulties, but the
expression of a settled and matured policy, when, in December
1264, [Montfort] issued in the King's name the ever-memorable
writs which summoned the first complete Parliament which ever
met in England.
{809}
The earls, barons, and bishops received their summons as of
course; and with them the deans of cathedral churches, an
unprecedented number of abbots and priors, two knights from
every shire, and two citizens or burgesses from every city or
borough in England. Of their proceedings we know but little;
but they appear to have appointed Simon de Montfort to the
office of Justiciar of England, and to have thus made him in
rank, what he had before been in power, the first subject in
the realm. ... Montfort ... had now gone so far, he had
exercised such extraordinary powers, he had done so many
things which could never really be pardoned, that perhaps his
only chance of safety lay in the possession of some such
office as this. It is certain, moreover, that something which
passed in this Parliament, or almost exactly at the time of
its meeting, did cause deep offence to a considerable section
of the barons. ... Difficulties were visibly gathering thicker
around him, and he was evidently conscious that disaffection
was spreading fast. ... Negotiations went forward, not very
smoothly, for the release of Prince Edward. They were
terminated in May by his escape. It was the signal for a
royalist rising. Edward took the command of the Welsh border;
before the middle of June he had made the border his own. On
the 29th Gloucester opened its gates to him. He had many
secret friends. He pushed fearlessly eastward, and surprised
the garrison of Kenilworth, commanded by Simon, the Earl's
second son. The Earl himself lay at Evesham, awaiting the
troops which his son was to bring up from Kenilworth. ... On
the fatal field of Evesham, fighting side by side to the last,
fell the Earl himself, his eldest son Henry, Despenser the
late Justiciar, Lord Basset of Drayton, one of his firmest
friends, and a host of minor name. With them, to all
appearance, fell the cause for which they had fought."

_Simon de Montfort
(Quarterly Review, January, 1866)._

See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH:
EARLY STAGES OF ITS EVOLUTION.

"Important as this assembly [the Parliament of 1264] is in the
history of the constitution, it was not primarily and
essentially a constitutional assembly. It was not a general
convention of the tenants in chief or of the three estates,
but a parliamentary assembly of the supporters of the existing
government."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 14, section 177 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets._

_G. W. Prothero,
Life of Simon de Montfort,
chapter 11-12._

_H. Blaauw,
The Barons' War._

_C. H. Pearson,
England, Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1271.
Crusade of Prince Edward:

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1270-1271.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1272.
Accession of King Edward I.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1275-1295.
Development of Parliamentary representation under Edward 1.

"Happily, Earl Simon [de Montfort] found a successor, and more
than a successor, in the king's [Henry III.'s] son. ... Edward
I. stood on the vantage ground of the throne. ... He could do
that easily and without effort which Simon could only do
laboriously, and with the certainty of rousing opposition.
Especially was this the case with the encouragement given by
the two men to the growing aspirations after parliamentary
representation. Earl Simon's assemblies were instruments of
warfare. Edward's assemblies were invitations to peace. ...
Barons and prelates, knights and townsmen, came together only
to support a king who took the initiative so wisely, and who,
knowing what was best for all, sought the good of his kingdom
without thought of his own ease. Yet even so, Edward was too
prudent at once to gather together such a body as that which
Earl Simon had planned. He summoned, indeed, all the
constituent parts of Simon's parliament, but he seldom
summoned them to meet in one place or at one time. Sometimes
the barons and prelates met apart from the townsmen or the
knights, sometimes one or the other class met entirely alone.
... In this way, during the first twenty years of Edward's
reign, the nation rapidly grew in that consciousness of
national unity which would one day transfer the function of
regulation from the crown to the representatives of the
people."

_S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
chapter 4, section 17._